Army’s not for a living but for life itself

Iwas travelling from Chandigarh to Delhi to conduct a workshop for a private university on booming career options available for students nowadays. While I sat in the train, relishing the piping hot morning tea with the piquant vegetable cutlets and flipping through the newspaper, I overheard two young women seated next to me discussing their prospective grooms. To kill the monotony of the journey, I joined them.

One wanted to marry an information technology (IT) professional from her field, while the other was keen on marrying an army officer. My moment of pride as an army wife, finding someone who wishes to marry a man in uniform was short lived as she went on to narrate the reasons. “Ma’am, do you know?” she said in the ecstasy of finding a treasure, “In the army, it’s all free. Be it free electricity or fee of children. All you have to do is dress up in the most sophisticated sari, wear the latest designer blouse and just enjoy life at parties. You get servants to cook and clean and a helper to even open your car door! This, besides the liquor and grocery canteen card.”

I wanted to yell at the top of my voice and tell her the stark reality of what it takes to marry a soldier.

I wanted to tell her how we wives have to wait for months simply to see our husband and are lured with promises of his homecoming. We don’t celebrate birthdays, anniversaries or special days but we celebrate togetherness. When the world is busy buying from online sales, we are busy surfing the internet to ascertain if everything is safe at the place of posting of our husband.

But somehow I restrained myself and just wished her luck for finding her future officer husband. I chose to go back to reading the newspaper that reported how a soldier was kidnapped and killed by terrorists in the Kashmir Valley.

During the workshop at the college in Delhi that day, I was discussing with a curious batch of final year students how they could earn envious packages of which their parents would also be proud of.

As I went on to talk about the leading multi-national companies, a youngster stood up and said, “Ma’am, you did not talk about the army as a career option. I wish to join the Indian Army.”

I asked him, “Do you know the salary offered to army personnel in India?” Looking straight into my eyes, he replied with a glint of pride in his eyes, “Ma’am, we don’t join the defence forces for pay packages. The army is joined for service to the nation.”

WE DON’T CELEBRATE ANNIVERSARIES BUT WE CELEBRATE TOGETHERNESS